WV trip recap
It's been about a week and a half since I got back from my trip to WV. For the most part, it's the same old story as every other visit I've made. I get to see my family again, which is nice, but after about a week I've had my fill of them. My grandparents are hanging in there, but everytime I visit them I wonder if it will be the last time I see them. In an effort to be a good elder brother, I setup a PC for my sister and gave my brother my old laptop. I updated all of my old CRT-era PCs which inhabit my old home. They are just Athlon XPs, but they're fine for Ubuntu and simple web browsing / document editing / e-mail.
For the most part, I just hung out and did whatever I wanted to do while I was there. It's a very odd feeling, though. It's like stepping into my old life circa 2006 everytime I visit there. The longer I've been away from WV, the more odd it feels to go back to that life. It's certainly not how I prefer to live. It is slower, though. A week at that slow pace can actually be somewhat refreshing.
Not all is well in the land of Coalzeroth. The recession has obviously struck the old malls of WV fairly hard. Both Town Center and Huntington Mall looked depressed as I walked through them this time around. Only Corridor G seems to be doing well these days. Though for the most part there were store closings, I did see some interesting new venues open up in the Charleston area. Atmosphere is a nice little gay nightclub that has stolen away a vast majority of the gay scene from the crappy converted funeral home known as Broadway. I was so pleasantly surprised to see it when I came into town. I dropped by there on a Saturday night to check the place out. I liked everything about the place except for the music. In fact, for some reason, all clubs in the south have shitty music. There was a car vandalisation that night, which didn't surprise me since the club is located in WV.
Right beside Atmosphere is Slyce, a pizza restaurant, owned by the same owners as Atmosphere. Slyce is open until 4am every night of the week. To be open until 4am every night of the week in Charleston, WV is unheard of. Both of Atmosphere and Slyce are welcome additions to a city that desperately needs something to make youth not flee for other bigger metros. A second pizza restaurant, Pies and Pints, reminds me of most semi-trendy metro pizza places. They specialize in interesting combination pizzas along with lots of booze to go with it. It seemed like a cool place to eat and hang out as well, but obviously the pizza place with the gay crowd would win out in my book.
I did the traditional board and LAN gaming with my friends. I think this will be the last time we do LAN gaming. The board games seem to work better for us. We saw Harry Potter 7 Part 2 while I was in town. It was an acceptable ending to the long series of movies. I didn't think it was fantastic, but I didn't think it was the best thing I'd ever seen, either.
So WV is pretty much the same as it always is. The new gay nightclub is pretty awesome given the area its in. I'm fairly loyal to Boston at this point, though. In fact, I think we're creeping closer and closer to condo shopping time. I've only just begun the process of finding a condo, but I've seen enough to know that I'm going to pay a ton of money for whatever I end up purchasing. The housing crisis apparently hasn't hurt Boston area prices that much.
For the most part, I just hung out and did whatever I wanted to do while I was there. It's a very odd feeling, though. It's like stepping into my old life circa 2006 everytime I visit there. The longer I've been away from WV, the more odd it feels to go back to that life. It's certainly not how I prefer to live. It is slower, though. A week at that slow pace can actually be somewhat refreshing.
Not all is well in the land of Coalzeroth. The recession has obviously struck the old malls of WV fairly hard. Both Town Center and Huntington Mall looked depressed as I walked through them this time around. Only Corridor G seems to be doing well these days. Though for the most part there were store closings, I did see some interesting new venues open up in the Charleston area. Atmosphere is a nice little gay nightclub that has stolen away a vast majority of the gay scene from the crappy converted funeral home known as Broadway. I was so pleasantly surprised to see it when I came into town. I dropped by there on a Saturday night to check the place out. I liked everything about the place except for the music. In fact, for some reason, all clubs in the south have shitty music. There was a car vandalisation that night, which didn't surprise me since the club is located in WV.
Right beside Atmosphere is Slyce, a pizza restaurant, owned by the same owners as Atmosphere. Slyce is open until 4am every night of the week. To be open until 4am every night of the week in Charleston, WV is unheard of. Both of Atmosphere and Slyce are welcome additions to a city that desperately needs something to make youth not flee for other bigger metros. A second pizza restaurant, Pies and Pints, reminds me of most semi-trendy metro pizza places. They specialize in interesting combination pizzas along with lots of booze to go with it. It seemed like a cool place to eat and hang out as well, but obviously the pizza place with the gay crowd would win out in my book.
I did the traditional board and LAN gaming with my friends. I think this will be the last time we do LAN gaming. The board games seem to work better for us. We saw Harry Potter 7 Part 2 while I was in town. It was an acceptable ending to the long series of movies. I didn't think it was fantastic, but I didn't think it was the best thing I'd ever seen, either.
So WV is pretty much the same as it always is. The new gay nightclub is pretty awesome given the area its in. I'm fairly loyal to Boston at this point, though. In fact, I think we're creeping closer and closer to condo shopping time. I've only just begun the process of finding a condo, but I've seen enough to know that I'm going to pay a ton of money for whatever I end up purchasing. The housing crisis apparently hasn't hurt Boston area prices that much.